MAJLESI, Moḥammad-Bāqer b. Moḥammad-Taqi b. Maqṣud-ʿAli Eṣfahāni, (b. 1627; d. 1699 or 1700), an eminent Twelver Shiʿite jurist in Safavid Iran (1501-1722) and one of the most important hadith scholars of Twelver Shiʿism (Ar. Eṯna ʿAšariya; Emāmiya). He is often referred to as Majlesi-e ṯāni, or Majlesi-e dowwom (Majlesi II), while his father Moḥammad-Taqi Majlesi (b. 1594-95; d. 1659-60) , who was a significant theologian in his own right, is known as Majlesi-ye Awwal (Majlesi I). He is also known as ʿAllāma-ye Majlesi or al-ʿAllāma (e.g., Baḥrāni, p. 55; cf. Davāni, 1991), Mollā Majlesi (e.g., Tonokāboni, 1992, p. 220; Zanuzi, IV, p. 237), and Āḵund Majlesi (e.g., Jazi, p. 117). Majlesi’s reputation among the ulema (ʿālem, pl.ʿolamāʾ “religious scholar”) rests primarily upon his monumental hadith encyclopedia Beḥār al-anwār in which he rearranged the entire corpus of Twelver Shiʿite traditions. Beyond the realm of theology and hadith, Majlesi wielded an unprecedented degree of political power under the last two Safavid shahs Solaymān (r. 1666-94) and Solṭān-Ḥosayn (r. 1694-1722), serving as šayḵ al-Eslām (see SHIʿITE DOCTRINE ii. Hierarchy in the Imamiyya) in the Safavid capital Isfahan from 1687 until his death.
In view of his apparently extraordinary intellectual and political stature, concrete data and hard facts about Majlesi’s life are, as in the case of his father, surprisingly scanty, and the historical person behind the literary and political figure remains rather elusive. He is first mentioned in Waliqoli Šāmlu’s chronicle Qeṣaṣ al-ḵāqāni, which was written around 1670. Majlesi is named among the Isfahan dignitaries and described as being “perhaps over 30 years” old (Šāmlu, II, p. 51). ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Ḵātunābādi (d. 1693-94) refers to Majlesi in his chronicle Waqāʾeʿ al-senin wa’l-aʿwām (cf. Āqā Bozorg, XXV, p. 128), mentioning his birth, his appointment as šayh al-Eslām, and a few dates on which he completed some of his writings (Ḵātunābādi, pp. 508, 533, 536, 537-38; for Majlesi’s death date, see p. 551 in the supplement, as Ḵātunābādi died before Majlesi). Three of his students composed biographical dictionaries (ṭabaqāt) that do not go into any further detail either, making do instead with listing his honorifics and writings (Ardabili, II, pp. 78-79; Afandi, 1981, V, pp. 39-40; Ḥorr ʿĀmeli, II, pp. 248-49). The earliest substantial biography was written by Majlesi’s grandson and student Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Ḵātunābādi (d. 1739; see Pampus, pp. 60-61; cf. Kohlberg, 1989, p. 91), and it is quoted in excerpts in later compilations (e.g., Ḵᵛānsāri, II, pp. 82-85; Ṭabresi, pp. 27-29).
French travelers (see FRANCE vii. French Travelers in Persia, 1600-1730) occasionally noticed Majlesi’s extraordinary office, without, however, specifying his name. In his description of 1690s Isfahan, the French priest and missionary Martin Gaudereau (1663-1743) mentioned “le grand Acconde qui est le chef de la Secte des Persans, & en quelque façon comme leur Pape” (p. 131, cf. p. 46). His colleague François Sanson spoke of the “Le troisième Pontife de Perse se nomme Akond ou bien Chiek Alislam, c’est à dire le Sçavant par excellence, le Vieillard ou le Venerable de la Loy Mahometane “ (pp. 23-24). In the 1670s the business man John Chardin (d. ca. 1713) explained the office of šayḵ al-Eslām (spelled cheic-al-Islam ) as “cette espece de prélat se nomme aussi akhoun, lecteur, théologien” (VI, p. 51). He knew of three men with the name Moḥammad Bāqer (VII, pp. 463-64, spelled Mahamed Baguer,) in Isfahan, though none of them seems to have been Majlesi who moreover did not yet serve as šayḵ al-Eslām when Chardin lived there.
The exact dates of Majlesi’s birth and death are disputed. Most sources agree on 1037/1627-28 as his date of birth (Ḵātunābādi, p. 508; Ṭabresi, p. 149; the hijra year 1027/1618 in Amin, IX, p. 182, seems to be a misprint). But one of the earliest writers, Aḥmad b. Moḥammad Behbahāni (d. 1819 or 1820) gives 1038/1628-29 in his Merʾāt al-aḥwāl (p. 113; cf. Ṭabresi, p. 149). For his date of death, the day is always 27 Ramażān, but one finds the year 1110 (29 March 1699), as well as the year 1111 (18 March 1700). Both dates are often put side by side in biographical dictionaries, and chronograms are quoted for either (Ṭabresi, pp. 150-51; Ḵᵛānsāri, II, pp. 81, 85; Kašmiri, pp. 178-79; cf. Pampus, p. 47). In the 20th century Imamite scholarship seems to have accepted the earlier date as given by Ḵātunābādi (e.g., Davāni, 1983, p. 101; Davāni in Mehrizi and Rabbāni, 1999, I, pp. 65-66).
In general, 20th century biographical entries on Majlesi tend to be rather stereotypical (for the character and purpose of Shiʿite biographical dictionaries in general, see Gleave, pp. 40-60), and hardly go beyond that which had been gathered by Ḵātunābādi, Behbahāni and Ṭabresi (ca. 1838-1902; cf. Brunner, 2001, pp. 39-42). Some recent compilers (e.g., Ḥakimi, Ḵuʾi) even content themselves with merely reproducing the sparse information provided by Ardabili (fl. 17th cent.), Moḥammad b. Ḥasan Ḥorr ʿĀmeli (1624-93), Afandi (d. ca. 1718), or Yusof Baḥrāni (b. 1695-96, d. 1772?).
Ṭabresi’s al-Fayż al-qodsi remains one of the most valuable sources on Majlesi’s life. The book was first published in 1884, on the occasion of the first complete lithographed edition of the Beḥār al-anwār (Āqā Bozorg, XVI, p. 408; cf. Pampus, pp. 17-19), and Ṭabresi’s work was retained in the Beḥār's 1980s Lebanese reprint. Ṭabresi focused on Majlesi’s writings (pp. 37-75), his teachers and students (pp. 76-104), as well as his ancestors (pp. 105-42) and descendants (pp. 143-48). All information about Majlesi’s life proper is restricted to the introduction (pp. 9-36) and the last chapter (pp. 149-65), and is of a decidedly hagiographic nature.
His family was well respected, as his father Muḥammad-Taqi Majlesi was an important jurist and hadith commentator, as mentioned above (for the family genealogy, see Brunner, 2002). Majlesi first studied with his father and other eminent scholars. Ṭabresi (pp. 76-82) listed 18 teachers (cf. Pampus, pp. 92-101), including Moḥammad Ṣāleḥ Māzandarāni (d. 1670 or 1675), Ḥasan-ʿAli Tostari (d. ca. 1659), and Moḥammad b. Ḥaydar Rafiʿā Nāʾini (d. 1670?). The outstanding Ḥorr ʿĀmeli ranks among both his teachers and his students, due to their mutually exchanged certificates of transmission (sing. ejāza; Ḥorr ʿĀmeli, II, p. 249; Majlesi, 1983, CX, pp. 103-06). While his early studies comprised the traditional curriculum of the religious sciences, he later concentrated on Quran and, above all, the traditions of the 12 imams. Majlesi (1983, I, pp. 2-3) called them the treasurers (Ar. ḵāzen, pl. ḵozzān) because their traditions are regarded as the sole means of accessing divine wisdom.
Majlesi had a large circle of students, and was an astonishingly prolific author. His influence as a teacher must have been enormous, even if the assertion of one thousand students is hardly verifiable (Ṭabresi, pp. 12-13). The names of a substantial number of his students are preserved in the biographical literature (49 in Ṭabresi, pp. 82-104; cf. 80 in Pampus, pp, 101-116), in part because they were recipients of an ejāza (for a collection of 115 licenses issued to 84 persons, see Ḥosayni, 1990; cf. Āqā Bozorg, I, pp. 148-56). Several of his students became scholars in their own right and are known as the authors of important works of the religious sciences and ṭabaqāt, such as Majlesi’ son-in-law Moḥammad-Ṣāleḥ Ḵātunābādi (d. 1714; cf. Pampus, pp. 102-3), Neʿmat-Allāh Jazāʾeri (d. 1701; cf. Pampus, pp. 104-105), Afandi (cf. Pampus, p. 105), or Solaymān b. ʿAbd-Allāh Baḥrāni (d. 1709 or 1715; cf. Pampus, p. 106).
Within his own family, Moḥammad Bāqer Majlesi was to be the last scholar of an outstanding reputation. The works of his two elder brothers ʿAziz-Allāh and ʿAbd-Allāh are only of minor importance (Kašmiri, pp. 135-36). His sister Āmena Begum is the only woman of the family whose name is mentioned in the biographical literature (Maḥallāti, III, p. 329). She gained limited fame as an authority on Majlesi’s family and the complex genealogy of his descendents (Ṭabresi, pp. 118-42; cf. Pampus, pp. 64-92; Mosleḥ-al-Din Mahdawi, 2003, pp. 30-44).
Majlesi wrote several dozen works in both Arabic and Persian, and their number varies in the many lists available (useful bibliographies are found in Ṭabresi, pp. 37-75; Mošar, II, cols. 23-42; Anṣāri Qommi; cf. the 25 Arabic books, 48 Persian books, and 17 Persian translations identified by Pampus, pp. 116-34). A first inventory, entitled Fehrest taṣānif al-Majlesi was drawn up by his aforementioned grandson Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Ḵātunābādi (Āqā Bozorg, XVI, pp. 380-81).
Majlesi’s most important book is the Beḥār al-anwār, one of the most extensive collections of Imamite hadith; it comprises 111 volumes in the printed edition. Other significant Arabic books are commentaries on classical tomes, such as the Merʾāt al-ʿoqul on al-Kāfi by Kolayni (d. 941) and the Malāḏ al-aḵyār fi šarḥ al-tahḏib on Tahḏib al-aḥkām by Moḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭusi (b. 995, d. 1066/7), and shorter treatises, such as the Resālat al-eʿteqādāt and al-Wajiza fi’l-rejāl. The majority of Iranians only converted to the Imamiyya after the establishment of the Safavid state (Brunner, 2005), and Majlesi’s fame as one of the most influential promoters of Twelver Shiʿism in Iran rests primarily on his Persian writings, who are said to have spurred this development. Majlesi himself made statements to this effect (Hairi, 1986, p. 1087; Shireen Mahdavi, 2003, p. 89), and several of his Persian works were highly popular:
(1) Ḥelyat al-mottaqin (Āqā Bozorg, VII, p. 83) is a collection of traditions on recommended customs and behavior (Shireen Mahdavi, 2003).
(2) ʿAyn al-ḥayāt (Āqā Bozorg, XV, p. 370) is a commentary on the testament which is said to have been given by the Prophet Moḥammad to his companion Abu Ḏarr Ḡefāri.
(3) Ḥaqq al-yaqin (Āqā Bozorg, VII, p. 40) explores the foundations of belief, and is usually regarded as Majlesi’s last work. Some Imamite biographers (e.g., Tonokāboni, p. 221; Jazi, p. 123) claim that in Syria about 70,000 people converted to the Imamiyya because of this book.
(4) Jalāʾ al-ʿoyun (Āqā Bozorg, V, pp. 124-25) discusses Moḥammad, Fāṭema, and the 12 imams (i.e., čahārdah maʿṣum).
(5) Toḥfat al-zāʾer (Āqā Bozorg, III, p. 438) explains the pilgrimage to the Shiʿite shrines (sing. emāmzāda).
(6) Ḥayāt al-qolub (Āqā Bozorg, VII, pp. 121-22) draws on the Beḥār al-anwār to examine the relations between the pre-Islamic prophets, Moḥammad and the imams. In the 19th century, this book attracted the attention of the Protestant missionaries Christian G. Barth (1799-1862) and James L. Merrick (1803-1866) who prepared partial German and English translations.
Majlesi exerted unprecedented political influence, not the least because Shah Solaymān and especially Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn were weak rulers who in contemporary European travelogues (Gaudereau, pp. 31-34; Krusiński, I, pp. 54, 62, 76) are generally described as typical products of the harem system. He seems to have followed his father as the leader of the congregational Friday prayer (emām-e jomʿa) of Isfahan (Baḥrāni, p. 55; cf. Pampus, p. 32), and in 1687 Shah Solaymān appointed him as the capital’s šayḵ al-Eslām (on this post, see Jaʿfariyān, 1992, pp. 90-107), so that he was entrusted with “the matters of the Muslims and jurisdiction according to religious law” (Ḵᵛānsāri, II, pp. 76-77). The assertion (Abisaab, p. 127) that he became ṣadr-e ḵāṣṣa and ṣadr-e ʿāmma (see ṢADR) is not corroborated elsewhere, and the confusion may reflect that the contemporary ṣadr-e ḵāṣṣa was also called Moḥammad-Bāqer (Floor, pp. 482-83). The ascription of the office of mollā-bāši to Majlesi was likewise shown to be erroneous (Arjomand, 1983). In his capacity as šayḵ al-Eslām, Majlesi is generally described (Baḥrāni, p. 55; Jazi, p. 124) as fighting everything considered heresy and innovation (bedʿa) by the traditionalist ulema, being incessantly intent on reviving the šariʿa, and enforcing the principle of enjoining the good and prohibiting the bad (Ar. “al-amr be'l-maʿruf wa'l-nahy ʿan al-monkar;” see AMR BE MAʿRUF). In many biographical accounts (Ḵᵛānsāri, II, p. 77; Ṭabresi, p. 20; cf. Pampus, p. 33) it is reported with satisfaction how, in the year of his appointment, he had an idol that was venerated by “Indian unbelievers” – the sources are unclear with regard to the specific religious context – in Isfahan destroyed and the idolators expelled from the Safavid empire (for his dealing with non-Muslim monotheistic faith communities (ahl al-ḏemma; Ar. sing. ḏemmi) and the enforcement of the poll tax (jezya), see Moreen’s tr. of his treatise about Jews). Majlesi fought against both Sunnite Islam and Sufism, but his opposition to Sufism was a delicate issue. His father was said to have had Sufi leanings, and Majlesi subsequently tried to dispel these claims (Baḥrāni, p. 60; Širāzi, I, pp. 268-86; Ṭabresi, pp. 117-18). He failed, however, in his attempt to have the prohibition of wine thoroughly enforced (Pampus, p. 35).
Regarding the dominant intellectual struggle of the time between Aḵbāris (q.v.) and Oṣulis, Majlesi did not side with either faction in an obvious way. Since he compiled the Beḥār al-anwār he contributed enormously to the dissemination of Twelver Shiʿite traditions about the 12 imams (Ar. sing. ḵabar, pl. aḵbār ) and consciously employed them to make Twelver Shiʿism prevail in Iran. On the delicate issue of the falsification (taḥrif) of the Qurʾān, which was claimed in early Shiʿite traditions and in later times became a hallmark of Aḵbāri leanings, Majlesi avoided passing final judgement. While qualifying such traditions as potentially weak, he nevertheless included them without restriction in his compilation (Brunner, 2001, pp. 21-22). Yet As emām-e jomʿa and šayḵ al-Eslām, he showed a willingness for political reasoning that exceeded the usual Aḵbāri stance (Jazi, pp. 122-23; Gleave, pp. 155, 241-44, 264-66), and his student Ardabili (II, p. 78) characteristically honored him with the epithet ḵātam al-mojtahedin.
In Anglo-American scholarship, Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesi does not usually enjoy a good reputation (on Western judgement of Majlesi in general, see ʿAlawi, 1991). Positive statements such as those by the American Dwight M. Donaldson who in the late 1920s considered Majlesi “the last and the greatest theologian of the Safavid period” and “thorough and diligent as a scholar” (p. 303-304) remain the exception. Critical and even polemical judgments are typical. John Malcolm (1767-1833), one of the earliest historians of Qajar Iran, saw Majlesi as an outright “bigot” (I, p. 595). Edward G. Browne (1866-1926) called him “one of the greatest, most powerful, and most fanatical mujtahids of the Ṣafawí period” (p. 403). Laurence Lockhart (b. 1890) perceived him as “a rigid and fanatical formalist” (p. 70) because of his persecution of Sunnites, Sufis and non-Muslims (cf. Pampus, pp. 33-34). A more recent example of this position is the tone adopted by Colin Turner (esp. pp. 148-86).
In stark contrast, most Imamite scholars have treated Majlesi with great reverence, and the eulogies and honorary epithets which normally open his entries in biographical dictionaries speak for themselves. Several biographers go so far as to suggest a direct connection between Majlesi’s death and the final decline of the Safavid empire within the following two decades (Baḥrāni, p. 55; Tonokāboni, p. 221; cf. Jazi, p. 124). Many an author cites with unconcealed pride a dictum by the anti-Shiʿite polemicist ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz Dehlawi (d. 1823), a son of the renowned Indian reformist thinker Šāh-Wali-Allāh Dehlawi (1703-62), to the effect that it is entirely appropriate to call Twelver Shiʿism “the religion of Majlesi” (Behbahāni, pp. 114-15; Ṭabresi, p. 14; cf. Qommi, 1984, pp. 250-51; 1948, p. 412; Modarres, V, p. 193). The deep veneration can extend to the belief in miracles, when it is, for example, asserted that a genie (Ar. jenn) once visited Majlesi’s teaching circle (Tonokāboni, Qeṣaṣ, p. 221) and miracles occurred at his gravesite (Mahdawi, 1969, p. 164; Jazi, p. 121). Ṭabresi (pp. 163-65) who sharply criticized the belief in miracles as credulity (pp. 163-64), reported a great number of dreams in which scholars were visited by Majlesi (pp. 149-62). In several of these accounts Majlesi is presented as the apotheosis of an Imamite scholar who is one of the intermediaries facilitating access to the imams and therefore to divine knowledge (bāb al-aʾimma; see BĀB (1)). Other dream narratives, by contrast, center on Majlesi's humbleness, as he was only allowed to enter paradise because he once gave a quince to a small child. Both visions illustrate the enormous charisma Twelver Shiʿite ulema through the responses of their followers (Brunner, 2009, pp. 110-15).
Such awestruck veneration notwithstanding, Majlesi has not entirely escaped Imamite criticism. Among his contemporaries Moḥammad b. Moḥammad Ḥosayni Mir Lawḥi (17th cent.; cf. Hairi, 1993) seems to have been the only one who openly resisted Majlesi in his book Kefāyat al-mohtadi fi maʿrefat al-mahdi (Āqā Bozorg, XVIII, pp. 101-102; for a summary of its content, see Dānešpažuh). After he had fallen out with Majlesi’s father over his support for Sufism, Mir Lawḥi openly repudiated the veneration of Moḥammad-Taqi Majlesi after his death, and criticized Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesi for his use of allegedly weak and tendentious hadiths (Babayan, pp. 465, 470-71). Mir Lawḥi claimed to have received death threats because of his reprobation of the Majlesis (Ṭabresi, pp. 34, 117; cf. Jazi, p. 121). This stance may explain why he was largely ignored by later compilers of Imamite ṭabaqāt.
Among his more recent Imamite critics, the prominent voices of Moḥsen Amin (1867-1952), Moḥammad Ḥosayn Ṭabāṭabāʾi (1902 or 1903-1981), and ʿAli Šariʿati (1933-77) are representative. In the Aʿyān al-šiʿa Amin remarked (IX, p. 183) that Majlesi’s merits notwithstanding, his writings needed revision, as they indiscriminately mixed useful and worthless material (Ar. al-ḡaṯṯ wa’l-samin lit. “the meagre and the fat”), and his interpretations of the traditions were often precipitate. Amin also disapproved of the fanaticism (ʿaṣabiya) with which people spoke about Majlesi. The philosopher Ṭabāṭabāʾi mainly disagreed with Majlesi over the definition and conceptualization of the intellect, and this disagreement earned Ṭabāṭabāʾi the characteristically heavy criticism of the clerical establishment in Qom (Dabashi, pp. 297-99; cf. in general ʿAlawi, 1992). For the revolutionary theorist Šariʿati (pp. 189-96; cf. Dabashi, pp. 110-13) Majlesi was one of the protagonists of the “black” or Safavid Shiʿism, which he considered conservative and irresponsible, juxtaposing it to the revolutionary and progressive force of “red” or ʿAlid Shiʿism.
Majlesi’s influence on the intellectual history of Twelver Shiʿism, the politics of 18th century Iran, and the final Shiʿitization of the country was enormous (Babayan, pp. 458-67). Ṭabresi (p. 19) credited Majlesi with being more meritorious than ʿAllāma Ḥelli (d. 1325), because the few preserved books of ʿAllāma Ḥelli were written in Arabic and only addressed to specialists. Majlesi, by contrast, had been a prolific writer who had also composed many works in Persian which could be understood by scholars and students, well as Sunnites, children, and women alike (cf. Ḵātunābādi in Ḵᵛānsāri, II, pp. 82-83). With regard to the role of the Imamite clergy in Iranian politics, Majlesi’s influence endured far beyond the Safavid era. Mainly thanks to Majlesi, the Twelver Shiʿite clergy of Arab Lebanese descent triumphed over the Imamite clergy who were Iranian notables. Since these powerful theologians were largely independent of the ruling elites, they survived political change while expanding their power. The scholar-cum-politician Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesi not only marked the beginning of a genuinely Iranian development within Twelver Shiʿism (Pampus, p. 52), but also foreshadowed the late 20th century assumption of power by the Imamite clergy in Iran (Arjomand, 1983, pp. 138-40; 1984, pp. 151-55). Unsurprisingly, in post-revolutionary Iran Majlesi continues to be held in high esteem. Since the 1990s, his works have been published in many new editions, as well as in Arabic and English translations, in Qom and Tehran. But it seems that some anti-Sunnite sections of the Behār al-anwār, especially the Ketāb al-fetan (Ar. sing. fetna lit. “trial”), were at least temporarily not reprinted for political reasons (Buchta, p. 72).
Bibliography:
Bibliographies of Works Ascribed to Majlesi:
Nāṣer-al-Din Anṣāri Qommi, “Ketābšenāsi-ye taʾlifāt-e ʿAllāma-ye Majlesi,” Meškāt 29, 1991, pp. 150-73; references to printed editions, translations, and revisions, as well as to Āqā Bozorg's Ḏariʿa; repr. in Mehrizi and Rahbāni, Šenāḵt-nāma, 1999 (for full reference see below), II, pp. 39-71.
Ḥosayn Dargāhi and ʿAli-Akbar Talāfi Dāryāni, Ketāb-šenāsi-ye Majlesi, Tehran, 1991.
Mahdi Mehrizi and Hādi Rabbāni, Šenāḵt-nāma-ye ʿAllāma-ye Majlesi: Maqālāt-e montašer šoda dar maṭbuʿāt, 2 vols., Tehran, 1999.
Ḵānbābā Mošār, Moʾallefin‑e kotob‑e čāpi‑e fārsi o ʿarabi, 6 vols., Tehran, 1961-66, II, cols. 23-42.
Selected Works Ascribed to Majlesi, in Alphabetical Order:
ʿAyn al-ḥayāt, ed. by ʿAli-Moḥammad Rafiʿi, Tehran, 2003; tr. as Taʿrib ʿAyn al-ḥayāh, Qom, 2000; tr. as Essence of Life, by Ṭāher Belrāmi, Qom, 2005.
Beḥār al-anwār al-jāmeʿa le-dorar aḵbār al-aʾemma al-aṭhār, 111 vols., Beirut, 1983; for a summary, see Maḥmud Doryāb Najafi, ʿAlā żefāf al-Beḥār: Taʿrif mujaz be-Ketāb beḥār al-anwār le'l-ʿĀllāma al-Majlesi, Beirut, 2002.
Ḥaqq al-yaqin dar oṣul o foruʿ-e eʿteqādāt, Isfahan, 2001.
Ḥayāt al-qolūb, 3 vols., Tehran, 1963; partial tr. as Die Mythen des Lebens Jesu: Auszüge aus “Haiat ul Kulub, oder Geschichte Muhameds, beschrieben nach der schiitischen Tradition von Mohamed Bachir, nebst einem das “Leben Jesu” von Dr. Strauss betreffenden Anhang, ed. Christian G. Barth, Stuttgart, 1837; partial tr. as The Life and Religion of Mohammed, as Contained in the Sheeâh Traditions of the Hyât-ul-Kuloob, by James L. Merrick, Boston, 1850; tr. as
Hayatul-Qulub: Stories of the Prophets, Characteristics and Circumstances of the Prophets and their Successors, by Syed Athar Husain S. H. Rizvi, 3 vols., Qom, 2003; tr. as La vie des coeurs, by A. and H. BenAbderRahmane, Beirut, 2007.
Ḥelyat al-mottaqin dar ādāb o sonan o aḵlāq-e eslāmi, Qom, 2002.
Jalāʾ al-ʿoyūn: Tāriḵ-e čahārdah maʿṣum, Qom, 2004.
Mafātiḥ al-ḡayb: Rāhi beh jahān-e ḡayb dar raveš-e esteḵāra, Teheran, 1995, prayers in Persian and Arabic; tr. as Mafātiḥ al-ḡayb wa-ādāb al-esteḵāra, by Yuṣof Ṣafi’l-Din, ed. by Mahdi Rajāʾi, Beirut, 1992.
Merʾāt al-ʿoqul fi šarḥ aḵbār āl al-rasul: Šarḥ ketāb al-Kāfi le’l-Kolayni, 25 vols.,
Tehran, 1981-89.
Meškat al-anwār, ed. ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Ṭāleʿi, Isfahan, 1992.
Toḥfat al-zāʾer, Tehran, 1897.
Al-Wajiza fi ʿelm al-rejāl, ed. Moḥammad Kāẓem Raḥmān Setāyeš, Tehran, 2000.
Zād al-maʿād, Arabic tr. by ʿAlāʾ-al-Din al-Aʿlami, Beirut, 2003.
Mahdi Mehrizi and Hādi Rabbāni, eds., Yādnāma-ye Majlesi: Majmuʿa-ye maqālāt, goftoguhā o soḵanrānihā-ye hamāyeš-e bozorgdāšt-e ʿAllāma-ye Majlesi, 3 vols., Tehran, 2000.
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(Rainer Brunner)
Originally Published: February 4, 2011
Last Updated: February 4, 2011
